


The Devil and His Daemon

by BrownieFox



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Lucifer (TV)
Genre: ? - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Gore, Idk desc of badly damaged wings, Tags and Characters to be added, Wings, also their daemons, brief description of the fall, but i did read a lot of the daemon wiki page, daemon AU, descriptions of Falls, so hopefully this turned out okay, that's just who i have rn, uh i haven't read hdm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28818186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieFox/pseuds/BrownieFox
Summary: And they say the Devil doesn't have a soul.orLucifer, but now everybody has daemons. This changes and complicates some things, and other things stay the same. Sort of a sporadic collection of moments.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 13
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

The demons know the story.

They know the story of Samael, of the archangel, falling from heaven. How he burned on the way down and his impact created a crater that became a lake of fire that he continued burn and writh and scream in for centuries. 

Those screams still echo in the darkest corners of hell, speaking of a pain far deeper than any other creature has ever felt. For who else had ever fallen from Heaven to Hell, and fallen from the grace of God, and been left to writhe in their own misery for years and years and decades and eons and the rest of time, betrayed and rejected by all they’d ever known.

And the damage was so terrible, so great, that the very essence that made up Samael split in two, so that he may not suffer alone, so that there would be one who may understand him.

And as Lucifer finally pulled himself from the eternally-burning lake, he was followed by his Vesper, and they stood to rule Hell as one. 

oOo

Chloe already hates the man when he continues to play the piano despite her attempts to ask him questions. Meri, as always, is on the same page as her, his tail twitching in annoyance. This man’s their primary witness, supposedly on the scene of the shooting, and yet he hardly seems interested in helping. And that was the other thing! It was like he thought it was a ‘mood’ thing, like her case was just something he could shrug off if it didn’t suit his fancy.

“Are you sure I haven’t seen you somewhere before?” He asks. His mouth is raised into something between a smirk and an inviting smile that makes Chloe huff and roll her eyes. Meri growls lowly. 

“Mm, Decker, Decker, that sounds familiar.” 

Something slips out from his shirt, peeking its head out and looking at Chloe and Meri with the barest of interest. She’s small, some kind of lizard, her body covered in little sharp points that Chloe can’t help but think must be uncomfortable against his bare skin like that. 

“Penelope Decker?” Lucifer offers to his daemon and Chloe does her best not to react to the name. 

“No, she’s a lot older, isn’t she?” The daemon says, crawling completely out of Lucifer’s shirt and walking down to the crook of Lucifer’s elbow, still staring up at Chloe. “Then again, who knows what kind of age-defying remedies they’ve come up with now.”

“Yes, they are quite resourceful, aren’t they?” Lucifer agrees. He finally stops his playing, reaching over and gently stroking the lizard daemon, who’s eyes close in contentment. 

“‘They’?” Chloe asks, even though she can already feel the headache the question is going to bring.

“You humans! Really amazing, I must say. Why, I remember when you were just hunters and gatherers, little more than base instincts. And look at you now.” He made a grand gesture to encapsulate the entire building, the entire world. Chloe stops herself from rolling her eyes again, but it’s a close thing. 

“Ah, yes, ‘us humans’, because you’re the devil.” Chloe says. He tilts his head, looking at her a bit more, and his daemon mirrors the action perfectly.

“I’m still not convinced we haven’t seen her naked before.” The daemon says.

“Alright, we’re done here.” Chloe decides. She isn’t in the mood to put up with this today. 

“Wait, detective, I must know, what are you planning to do about this?” 

Chloe stops, not because she wants to continue this conversation, but because something about him seems to have finally come around to be a bit more serious, his question honest. 

“Look, you said it yourself, the shooter said he did it for money. It’s an open and shut case.” She says it with conviction, but Meri makes an upset sound in the back of his throat, tail twitching in displeasure. It doesn’t slip past Mr. Morningstar, it would seem, the corner of his mouth twitching up. She turns to leave again.

“Wait, we’re not done here-”

“Uh, yeah, we are.” 

Chloe walks out of the club, hoping to never to be inside or see its owner again.

“Well, he was an ass.” Meri grumbles and Chloe chuckles despite herself.

oOo

Chloe’s mom had been positively ecstatic when Meridies settled as a snow leopard. 

A daemon didn’t  _ necessarily _ limit acting roles or anything. For years now, there’d been ‘daemon substitutions’ in movies, where just off camera was the actor’s actual daemon and somebody who had a daemon that the director and writer felt better suited the role, while the actor and the other person’s daemon went around pretending to be each others. 

There was plenty of debate over the ethics of such portrayals, but at the end of it all, it meant that Chloe and Meri were both young, and Meri had settled as something beautiful, and the auditions that Chloe’s mom forced them both to go to increased ten-fold. 

Penelope Decker didn’t make much effort to hide the fact she felt both Chloe and Meri had wasted their potential joining the LAPD. 

oOo

Dan’s Levi used to love to brush up against Meri in the middle of the precinct. 

Such open displays of affection were, of course, frowned upon, but it didn’t stop the rottweiler from trotting up to where Meri had curled up underneath Chloe’s desk, as out of the way as the big cat could get, and cuddling up right next to him.

It meant their relationship was clear for the entire precinct to watch as it developed.

It also meant it was plain as day when things started to go south for them. 

Meri outright yowled at Levi once for getting too close. Levi had had the sense to tuck her tail between her legs and dart back over to Dan, looking away. Chloe didn’t dare look up from her paperwork to see how the clear display of disdain was being taken by her coworkers. She didn’t want to know if they were going to side with Dan or her. Quite frankly, she didn’t want them to side with either! They should’ve kept their relationship out of the workplace to begin with. 

“Meri,” Chloe had whispered, admonishing her daemon. Meri had given a huff, letting his head rest on his paws.

“They’ve had it coming.” Meri grumped very pointedly. 

oOo

Eventually, Chloe gets curious, and she looks up what Lucifer’s daemon is.

“She’s a thorny devil. Really.” Chloe can’t keep the disbelief out of her voice. How the hell Lucifer managed to pull that off, she had honestly no idea. 

Lucifer regards her with a smirk. As per usual, Vesper has taken to hiding underneath his jacket. She used to hide under Lucifer’s button-up shirt, but Chloe wasn’t going to ask about the change, because it would mean she’d been paying enough attention to  _ notice  _ the change, and that wasn’t going to go anywhere good. 

At Chloe’s mention of her, Vesper pokes her head of Lucifer’s jacket to look over at Chloe looking absolutely smug. 

“Yes, her idea of a joke. You know, we first thought about going as some kind of snake, but we’ve done that to death. I must say, though, the lizard has grown on me, truly. Better than the goat she first wanted to go as.” Lucifer says with a shrug. 

“Because you both  _ chose  _ what she’d settle as.” Chloe says, deadpan, and Meri gives a cough that is clearly a poorly disguised laugh. Nothing quite like hearing somebody act as if what they settled as was a choice, like it wasn’t fate. 

“No, of course not,” Lucifer agrees, which catches Chloe’s attention. As ever, Vesper has already hidden away again, “That would imply that the Devil has  _ settled _ .” 

“You’re saying that you’re unsettled.” Chloe repeats, not able to believe her own ears. 

“Of course! As I’m certain you know, settling is a part of human children growing and maturing. However, Detective, I was never a child and am not human, so ‘settling’ is simply something we’ve never done.” He makes a gesture to his shoulder where, hidden, must be where Vesper lies. Chloe refuses to admit how strange Vesper’s habit of hiding is. Seeing Lucifer, especially that first time, with no visible daemon, is enough to make one consider just for a moment whether he might be telling the truth. 

“And you can prove this.” Chloe states. 

“Naturally, if I didn’t think it’d bring more experimental theologians than it was worth.” Lucifer replies almost dismissively. 

“Yeah, sure.” Chloe says.

“Yes, she is impossible, isn’t she?” Lucifer whispers, but not quietly enough for Chloe to miss it. The comment is directed to his shoulder.

“Not as impossible as you.” Meri says with a half-playful growl in his voice. Lucifer blinks, surprised at being addressed. “You could just say you’re settled, you know. Everybody settles.”

“Ah, yes, perhaps, but I don’t lie.” Lucifer as ever reminds them. 

And that is apparently that on that. 

oOo

“So, is there a reason you settled as a, well, a thorny devil?” 

Linda has been pestering Lucifer with questions about Hell and Heaven and everything in between for the entire session. In fact, this isn’t one of his sessions, technically. Linda had gone ahead and scheduled this time just to get some of these questions out. This one is a bit of a departure from her previous questions, perhaps, but it is one of the ones that have been bugging her and Jayr. Well, Jayr a bit more than her, she’d admit. She’d never done much study into daemons and dust and all that. 

“Doctor, I’ve told you before, I’m unsettled.” Lucifer says, looking a bit confused. And, well, yes he has said that before. 

“Wait, is she… is Vesper not real? Is she some kind of, what, illusion? Can you just manipulate dust into something daemon-like in order to trick humans?” Linda asks, her brain already trying to figure out how that would work. Lucifer on his part looks affronted at the accusation.

“Well, if that were possible, then Amenadiel wouldn’t have been walking around with that empty insect daemon container hanging around his throat. Well, not so empty these days, it seems.” Lucifer explains as much as he ever explains anything. 

“So then fallen angels end up with daemons.” Jayr is the one who tests out the rule out in the open, the squirrel sitting on Linda’s shoulder and curious eyes on Lucifer and Vesper, just barely peeing out of the man’s sleeve. 

“I suppose you could say that, although you are overlooking the drastic differences between my fall and my brother’s. Amenadiel’s fall has left him, for all intents and purposes, mortal, and as such I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually his daemon does settle. Myself and Vesper, on the other hand, are still celestial. I just had a bit of a rough landing.” Lucifer lifts his hand so his palm is facing upwards and Vesper crawls out to stand on it. 

“We’re nothing like Amenadiel and Exemplar.” Vesper says. “For one thing, we didn’t give me such an idiotic name.”

“So then, you’re unsettled? And always will be?” Jayr asks again. Vesper turns to look back at Lucifer who casts his gaze around the room.

“Oh, why not.” He says.

And then there’s a great lioness lounging in Linda’s office, stretching out and opening her mouth to reveal deadly sharp fangs. 

"This enough proof for you, Doctor?" The lioness asks in Vesper's voice. Lucifer grins, clearly please with himself over the display. 

"Wow." Jayr breathes and darts forward, clearly planning to jump right onto the lioness for a clearer look. Before he can do so, the lioness disappears and becomes a rabbit, sitting on the couch next to Lucifer, nose twitching. 

Linda almost asks if Vesper has a 'Devil face'.

Almost.

oOo

When Samael had split, and been burned, and continued to burn in complete agony, he was not alone. Not alone, in the sense that he was now no longer one being, but two. The body and the mind, and the soul. 

In those centuries of agony, they name each other. They’re no longer ‘Samael’, no longer the anything ‘of god’. It’s the daemon who names him Lucifer and it’s the devil who names her Vesper. Together they are the lightbringer, they are immortal, and forever, and the only thing they can ever truly rely on ever again. 

This is the fact that becomes etched into their existence. 

This is the fact that wavers upon meeting one particular human. 


	2. Chapter 2

When Samael first steps on Earth since the Fall, when Amenadiel is sent to return his brother to Hell that first time, he tries to deny what he’s looking at. 

Samael stands on Earth looking just as he always has. His wings are stretched out behind him, all the better to catch and feel the breeze from the top of the hill he has picked out to stand upon. His hair is still long, full of waves and curls that are gently blown over his shoulders. The clothes he wears are unfamiliar, some kind of leather, but with that small exception, Amenadiel could almost think this is the same Samael he knew so long ago. Before all the questions and disagreements and the rebellion.

But Amendaiel knows better.

He watches from a distance for a moment. His brother isn’t alone. There’s a bird with him, a large one with a sharp curved beak. He’s letting it sit on his shoulder, not at all bothered by the talons. The bird on its own part doesn’t seem to find the fact that it’s sitting on the shoulder of a human whose flesh its talons can’t cut into to be odd in the slightest.

He knows, already, it’s no bird, but he foolishly lies to himself as he glides over.

Samael opens his eyes, eyebrows raised upon seeing Amenadiel standing before him. 

“Of course, the first taste of fresh air I’ve had in centuries, and you come and put it on pause.” Samael says. There’s no venom to it. Amenadiel tries not to think about this, tries not to dissect it. (Hundred, thousands of years later, he analyzes it, and he can hear the hesitancy, the fear, something so fragile hidden in there). 

“Samael.” Amenadiel says.

“Amenadiel.” Samael smiles. The bird on his shoulder shifts around, head cocking to the side as it looks at Amenadiel. “I’m afraid that’s not our name any more.”

“Samael, your time isn’t done.” Amenadiel tries to go on. 

“My time?” He asks, and now his head is tilting just like the bird. The bird’s beak opens and closes a few times before seeming to decide it’s best left closed. Samael looks over at the bird, confusion crossing his face, and then looks back at Amenadiel. “My time for what?”

“Samael-”

“That’s not our name.” Samael corrects again.

“- you rebelled against God. Now, he’s given you a task, a trial, and it isn’t over.” Amenadiel explains.

“We’ve, but, we were down there for-”

“Not long enough.” Amenadiel says. “Father hasn’t told you to return yet, has he?”

“That’s not why you’re here.” Samael’s voice doesn’t crack, but it seems like it’s a close thing. 

“I’ve come to return you to your trial.” Amenadiel says. He puts a hand out. He’s still furious over the rebellion, it’s still too soon, too fresh in his mind, but he’s tempered his anger this long, and he finds that he truly doesn’t want to make this harder than it has to be. “Samael-”

“That’s not our name!” 

The words ring through the air, but it’s not Lucifer who had said them. 

The bird on Samael’s shoulder has set its gaze on Amenadiel, and its beak is open and it's the only other living creature here. 

Amenadiel is speechless. This is no simple animal, that much is clear, but he’s still unwilling to believe what he can see. 

“Vesper.” Samael lifts a hand and uses it to try and settle the feathers of the bird. As Amenadiel watches the bird changes, shifts into a snake, wrapping itself around Samael's shoulders and arms and chest. It continues to stare at Amenadiel fury lying just beneath the surface.

“We’re not going back there.” The snake hisses, low and sharp. 

“One of your demons?” Amenadiel asks, grasping for the only thing that makes sense.

“They’re not our demons! That’s not our realm, or our trial, and we’ve gotten out of there!” The snake insists, coiling tighter around Samael. Its voice is overlapped by Samael’s as he says what Amenadiel knew, must’ve known, when he’d first seen the two beings.

“Daemon, actually.” Samael’s wings have mantled now, wrapping around him and ‘Vesper’. Somehow, Amenadiel knows what he means, knows it’s ‘daemon’ and not ‘demon’.

“Angel’s don’t have daemons.” Amenadiel states. 

“Well, then I guess we’re not an angel anymore, are we.” For a moment, it looks like Samael’s eyes are on fire, are burning. The illusion is there one moment and gone the next, and Amenadiel isn’t sure whether it’s his imagination or not. 

“Your trial isn’t over.” Amenadiel says, because that’s what he knows, that’s a fact he can cling to as he tries to come to terms with what’s in front of him. Angel’s don’t have daemons. Daemons are something that his Father gave humans so that they may be able to form stronger and deeper bonds with both each other and themselves. What does it mean that Samael now has one? “Return to Hell, or I’ll be forced to return you myself, Samael.”

“His name is Lucifer!” ‘Vesper’ screams.

“Her name is Vesper!” Samael roars.

Amenadiel is not the angel of patience. He’s confused, and his confusion easily feeds into the embers that are still hot from the betrayal, from the rebellion, from how Samael has eternally mared Heaven with the knowledge that the eternal peace that had once been there has now been broken. 

He surges forward, grabbing Samael and flying them down to Hell before the other can react. 

It’s the first time he’s ever been down to this realm. It’s oppressively hot, and there’s a distant clamour from beneath them. The demons, he imagines.

Samael flaps his wings, instinctively trying to get purchase in the air and pull away from Amenadiel. But no, if Amenadiel just lets him go, what’s to stop the Fallen angel from simply returning back to Earth? So Amenadiel angles his own sharp feathers to slice into Samael’s wings and finally let’s go.

He stares and tells himself he doesn’t feel a thing as he watching his brother fall for a second time, this time knowing that he was the one responsible, his brother’s eyes fixed on him. The daemon stays tucked tight against Samael, staring up at Amenadiel with pure rage. 

When he returns to Heaven, his siblings ask him what happened.

For whatever reason, he doesn’t mention the devastation the fall had wrought on their fallen brother. Perhaps because he hadn’t wanted to think about it himself. 

oOo

In the end, when Amenadiel’s wings finally become so decayed they finally fall off of him, it’s almost a relief. 

They’re little more than bone and grayed flesh, only a sparse smattering of tattered feathers left hanging on. They give way, falling to the floor of Amenadiel’s room (not his room, technically, a room of a building that his brother owns) and the pain of the final tendons separating is nearly outweighed by the very literal weight off of his shoulders. Still, he gives a cry as they fall, dropping to his knees himself, and stays there with his eyes shut tightly. 

Logically, he knows he has to stand back up. He has to do something with the dead limbs behind him, perhaps burn them like Lucifer had his own, and he has to clean up the messy wounds they’d left on his back. He’s seen Lucifer’s scars before. He supposes he now will have a set to match. 

He’s shaking, and before he can try to stop himself he’s started to sob, feeling all too keenly just what he has lost, what he has fallen from. Was this a taste of what Lucifer had felt, when Michael had brought him to the edge of Heaven and flung him off? Or perhaps Lucifer hadn’t felt this until he’d reached that bottom, until he’d actually hit Hell itself and his fall was finalized. 

Something small rubs up against his leg.

Amenadiel doesn’t flinch, because he is (he  _ was) _ God’s greatest warrior, unbeaten in battle, but he opens his eyes and draws away.

There’s a small dog in the room with him. The dog looks absolutely miserable, large and baleful eyes staring up at Amenadiel before it steps closer again, brushing up against Amenadiel and making small and mournful sounds in the back of its throat. 

It takes a moment for Amenadiel to realize what it is he’s seeing. 

There’s a daemon in his room.

A daemon, in the form of some dog, who has willingly strode right over and touched him. He was no expert on humans or daemons, but he knew enough to know about the taboo. 

He’s so shocked that for a moment the pain in his chest is numbed as he tries to understand what is in front of him. Whose daemon is this? Where did it come from? Where was its human?

“It hurts.” The daemon says, its voice tearful. 

“Who…?” Amenadiel asks. He reaches out to the daemon and then remembers himself before he actually touches it, drawing his hand back at the last moment. The daemon nips at Amenadiel’s fingers, not enough to draw blood but enough to be contact, deliberate.

“You know who I am. You named me already.” The daemon insists. It walks over to the wings and as Amenadiel watches, the daemon shifts into some kind of monkey, hands grabbing at the bones and pulling them into something resembling a pile.

He does know, he realizes as he watches it. Watches  _ her. _

“I named an empty locket.” He says.

The daemon -  _ his  _ daemon -  _ Exemplar _ looks over. The monkey shakes her head.

“And yet here I am now. We’ve fallen, Amenadiel. We’re mortal.” And that’s the name for the ache that fills every crevice of his being, that fills and overflows him with every breath he takes. He’s mortal, he’s human.

And humans have daemons.

“But- if you’re-“

“Do you consider humans to be unwhole?” Exemplar asks, following Amenadiel’s train of thought with apparent ease. 

“No, of course not, that’s how Father created them.” Amenadiel replies instantly, 

“If we are human, and we’re now the two of us, then I don’t think we’re broken. This… it must be a trail from Father, don’t you think?” Exemplar looks like she’s actually asking Amenadiel’s opinion on it, even though she’s his soul, manifested out in the open world where anyone could simply reach out and touch her so easily. 

“Yes, a trial.” Of course that was what this was. After what Amenadiel had done with Malcolm, Father must be showing Amenadiel the value of human life with this chance at being mortal himself. That must be it. It had to be. 

He reaches over to help with the his wings. He still feels so weak, and the pain on his back is still there, the feeling of slowly-dripping blood working its way down his back making shivers run up his spine.

“Maybe… let’s fix you up first.” Exemplar suggests.

There will be time later. Time to try and figure out what a daemon means when it’s his, how much she knows about him, how it’s affected him.

But for now, he’ll just be thankful that in this moment, at this lowest point, he isn’t alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one ended up being Amenadiel focused, just kind of how it turned out. Hopefully I'll be able to get to other characters soon too :)   
> Again, if you have any character in particular you hope to see, say something and I'll see what I can do :D

**Author's Note:**

> Daemons:  
> Lucifer - thorny devil - Vesper  
> Chloe - snow leopard - Meridies  
> Dan - rottweiler - Levi  
> Linda - gray squirrel - Jayr
> 
> Had this idea and decided to write it up :D I'm hoping to eventually go over how of the main characters and their daemons and such, as well as go into his this changes things, but decided to post the first chapter :) If anybody has any particular scense/characters they want to see, please speak up and I'll try to include them.


End file.
